What Are Your Goals

Each marketing platform yields different results. Knowing the results you are looking for is the first step in deciding the type of content you should create.

Email List

Newsletter or email blasts may be used to drive traffic and sales. Consider a landscaper who sends out an email blast the morning while a storm is raging outside. His goal is to be top-of-mind for his customers. His email may discuss puddling in your yard and how decorative stone can help alleviate the problem in the future or he may discuss post-storm clean-up. His goal to be top-of-mind is likely to lead to calls that in turn lead to sales. A manufacturing firm may use their email blasts to educate their customers about their latest product or technique and encourage their audience to attend the next trade show to learn more.

Blog Content

In addition to driving traffic and sales, your goal in creating blog content could include education. Blog content gives you the opportunity to illustrate the benefits of your product or service and overcome objections. In this case, consider the karate studio that helps parents learn more about parenting models. They create content that educates their customers while also helping them overcome the objection that their hyperactive child should not learn to fight and kick. They may already be fighting with their siblings at home. With a series of blog posts the dojo can help a parent see how the discipline of karate can help this child take better control over their actions.

Social Media Goals

But what are your goals with your social media campaigns? Except in very specific cases, such as an ecommerce site or an app, making a direct sale through social media is very difficult. However, social media has important benefits for both B2C and B2B customers.

Build Trust

First and foremost social media can help to build trust in your company. By creating a social media presence that tells the story of your company you are creating transparency. The customer sees not only what your company has to offer, but how you handle customer service, how you respond to reviews and how you treat your employees. By highlighting these areas of your company through social media you are creating a story of what your company stands for.

Engaging Your Customer

Although some audiences engage better than others, almost every industry, whether it is B2C or B2B can build some form of engagement with their customers. By creating personas for your audience you can create content that attracts each individual persona. The content for a potential hire will be different from the content you create for a customer who is going to walk through your door and buy a finished product and that may be different still from the content you create for the small business owners you hope to attract as strategic partners, but together these posts help you share your story and your brand and attract engagement in the form of likes, comments and shares.

Creating Evangelists

One of the most important things to consider when creating content is how you make your audience feel. By creating content that offers real education, you may be solving a problem they have been struggling with and in turn relieving stress. By creating content showing your employees having fun or receiving recognition, you may help a potential employee feel empowered enough to apply to your firm. But where you can create true evangelism in your audience is by inspiring them to be more and do better. Consider the sports performance company that shares their young athlete’s success. Their audience may share the content to help congratulate the young athlete, but they may also share it to show what can be done with hardwork and perseverance. Or consider the factory who shares their journey to reduce product loss and employee injury by implementing a new safety program that runs through every phase of the business. By sharing their journey, they become the expert and attract both employees and potential customers for their end product.